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Virtual It Girl
Citizen
Username: Shh
Post Number: 3820
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - 6:02 pm: | 
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My otherwise bright and extremely creative fourth grader has difficulties with spelling. Her spelling abilities to not correspond with her levels in other areas.
I know from asking around that this is not uncommon among people of all ages and intelligence levels...actually, it seems many extrememly bright people have a lot of problems with spelling.
With her wonderful teacher, we have come up with a few ideas to help support her, but if anyone has suggestions, I would love to hear them.
FWIW, I didn't post this in education because I do not believe this is a problem with the district. I am just looking for helpful advice. |
las
Citizen
Username: Las
Post Number: 821
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - 10:52 pm: |
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VIG, do you or her teacher know what she is mis-spelling? For example, high frequency words she should know automatically? Exceptions? Carelessness? How is her reading? Does she miscue the same words she mis-spells?
You are right, this is not about intelligence.
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jasper
Citizen
Username: Jasper
Post Number: 382
Registered: 7-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - 11:24 pm: |
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I'm no expert (though I am a stickler for correct spelling), but it seems to me that the best way to learn to spell is to read.
The English language has very little in the way of logical rules when it comes to spelling, as I find over and over again when trying to explain to my 6-year-old son how to spell various words. I mean, how do you explain that "dirt" is spelled with an 'i', "hurt" is spelled with a 'u' and "pert" is spelled with an 'e'? Or what about "girl", "hurl" and "pearl"? There is simply no way of knowing this without having seen the words in print.
I think seeing words (and making sure you're reading them correctly when you do) is the only way to remember how to spell them. It's also helpful to understand about word roots. For example, knowing that the word "separate" comes from the word "apart" may help you remember that the letter 'a', not the letter 'e', follows the 'p', a common mis-spelling. Another example is the word "accommodate", which comes from "commode", hence the double-m and the 'o', not 'a', following it.
It would probably also be helpful to make spelling lists each week, perhaps culled from recent reading material, and have your daughter review them. Wasn't there a movie about spelling bees lately. Maybe seeing that would help? |
Virtual It Girl
Citizen
Username: Shh
Post Number: 3821
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, January 19, 2006 - 7:36 am: |
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Las, sent you an email.
Jasper, this is why it's tricky. She is an avid reader with good comprehension. (Meaning, she can sit and read for hours...200 pages or more per night.)
Will try to follow up later... |
Virtual It Girl
Citizen
Username: Shh
Post Number: 3822
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, January 19, 2006 - 9:19 am: |
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Ok, to elaborate slightly...she understands what she reads. On a rare occasion she might ask me the meaning of some word, in which case we discuss or she looks it up. She will misspell out of carelessness at times, but also her thoughts seem to come quickly and she wants to get it all on paper. When she reviews (which we ask her to do) she will often miss her careless errors and others too. She understands what she writes when she rereads it, even with glaring spelling errors.
Jasper, she is learning all the things you mention in school, it just doesn't click. She is making some progress, but I think at this point we need to offer her some coping skills to deal with it. It is often a struggle (which becomes an argument, and she is stubborn) so to keep her from hating and resenting us, I'd like to make it easier for her to help herself.
We are going to look at a few dictionaries (we have plenty at home, we want to make sure it's easy enough for her to use) and at school her teacher will make an effort to help her use it. We will also get her an electronic speller, so when she writes she can type in HER spelling and get the correct spelling. Also, she knows she will be held more accountable for her spelling, so she has to make an effort to correct it, but unfortunately it's not as simple as teaching her patterns and word roots. (Which I know is not simple, but I mean it's not cut and dry for her to learn that way.)
My husband equated it to not being able to remember people's names. You need to teach yourself little tricks to do it, but it still doesn't come naturally. We can see the difference between my 4th grader and my 2nd grader who seems to have much more of an innate ability to spell. |
Wendyn
Supporter
Username: Wendyn
Post Number: 2642
Registered: 9-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, January 19, 2006 - 9:32 am: |
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No advice here as I still can't spell worth a damn. I have to look up basic words every day. And I have been a voracious (had to look that one up, got it wrong) reader all my life.
It is one of those things that has just never mattered to me, so I haven't put the effort into trying to remember. And once spell check was invented I completely gave up. I just had to write 20 thank you notes for my kid's birthday and I was pretty embarrassed (looked that one up too, wrong again) at how many times I had to ask my hubby how to spell something.
Sorry I don't have any advice but good luck with it! |
mjh
Supporter
Username: Mjh
Post Number: 347
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, January 19, 2006 - 9:36 am: |
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VIT:
It's been interesting to follow your description of your daughter, because it's an absolute parallel to my 4th grade son. He's an avid reader, does very, very well in school across the board...........except for spelling and "neatness". They seem to me to go together somewhat.....in a hurry and a bit careless. I think the school teaches plenty of spelling........word roots, patterns, etc, and he does plenty of reading/writing etc. It just doesn't stick for him when it comes to spelling.
I think the #1 issue is that he doesn't care much about it. He can read it.....so what's the problem?
My son tends to be motivated by grades(such as they are in the district), and this year he has identified improving his spelling grade as a goal. In other words, I can't convince him to care about spelling for it's own value, but he does want to get a better grade in spelling, so perhaps this motivation will make the difference. Does your daughter care about the grade?
Didn't think about electronic speller, but would be interested to hear if this is successful. |
Virtual It Girl
Citizen
Username: Shh
Post Number: 3823
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, January 19, 2006 - 9:44 am: |
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MJH, what school does he attend?
She doesn't seem TOO motivated by grades with regards to her spelling. She does care about other grades. She is a little lazy, but when she is interested in something she will put her all into it and she generally does well.
I know this is not the end of the world; spell check will be very helpful to her down the road, but for now and the rest of her school years she will be judged on her writing and spelling to a certain extent. |
peteglider
Citizen
Username: Peteglider
Post Number: 1711
Registered: 8-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, January 19, 2006 - 9:49 am: |
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THere are roughly 200 "sight words" that are key to reading, sounds like your child has a decent mastery of those.
However, beyond that, reading and spelling are based on decoding skills. Sounds like the issue may be more in this area for your child. There are plenty of learning strategies for that.
BTW -- its not at all unusual for this stuff to come out in 4th grade -- where there is a huge increase and reliance on text across all subjects.
Out of curiosity -- how legible is her handwriting? (these things tend to go together)
Pete |
C Bataille
Citizen
Username: Nakaille
Post Number: 2409
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, January 19, 2006 - 9:53 am: |
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My kid can ace the spelling tests (studies pretty well) but in her writing the spelling is pretty atrocious. Much of it is that hurried, careless thing. We had a major blowout about editing her work yesterday morning which resulted in a major consequence afterschool. Once the rage over the consequence subsided she was able to do her homework and even took extra care with her night write for a change. We get really tired of these battles. Mine is not a voracious reader despite having two parents addicted to printed matter but she does have excellent comprehension and a good spoken vocabulary.
I'm intrigued about the electronic speller as a partial response to the issue. What I'd like is one that would note which words are being checked so we could develop a list from it to work on. |
jasper
Citizen
Username: Jasper
Post Number: 385
Registered: 7-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, January 19, 2006 - 10:58 am: |
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I confess that I was a naturally good speller from the start, and I'm also very neat, so I would agree that there is something innate in that ability. I have a brain that is particularly good at recognizing patterns and the "shape" of words, which I think helps a lot. Even so, I also have to look up certain words, so the focus on teaching her to use the various tools, be they paper or electronic, is a good one.
Oh, there were two Spelling Bee movies:
Bee Season (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387059/)
Spellbound (http://www.documentaryfilms.net/Reviews/Spellbound/oldindex.htm and http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0334405/)
Don't know if they'll help your daughter with her spelling, but they both sound like interesting films.
Good luck. |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 11986
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, January 19, 2006 - 11:01 am: |
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To whom is this important, you, your daughter, or her teacher? I recommend against a large amount of supplemental work to address this. In my experience, this tends to work itself out over time. My older daughter was a bad speller. She's now fairly good and in 11th grade. She's no champion, but good enough. I think different people process words differently. I have various tricks to remember. For instance, I pronounce words in my head according to how they would sound if spelling had consistent rules. I also like to learn the etymology of words, which gives lots of clues about why they are spelled the way they are. I think my former trick can help your daughter, but the latter may be too advanced for a fourth grader. But I could be wrong!
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mjh
Supporter
Username: Mjh
Post Number: 348
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, January 19, 2006 - 12:45 pm: |
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Virtual It:
My son (as per your question above) is at Clinton. In truth, I think the early-school message to "just write" and not worry too much about spelling was a message he took to heart and won't let go, while other kids seemed to have moved on and learned to spell. In truth, his teacher didn't seem at all concerned about it in speaking with us, but is pressuring him a bit to try to improve.
It is funny....I also have this innate sense that his sloppy penmenship and bad spelling are part and parcel of the same problem. Perhaps the "who cares" attitude is defensive, and he just has a hard time doing it correctly. But I tend to agree with Tom R (above) that this may work itself out, and I don't want to overemphasize it to the point of battle. I just want to instill some motivation to try harder.
He was "spellbound" by the spelling bee films.......and it did help motivate him for awhile. Your daughter might enjoy them. |
mim
Citizen
Username: Mim
Post Number: 548
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, January 19, 2006 - 1:27 pm: |
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One of ours was a bad speller and the other EXCELLENT, despite having had very similar educations. I was told spelling is largely a function of visual memory -- for those without a good visual memory, spelling is just harder. (Our bad speller did get much better with practice, but still works on it harder than the sibling, who seems to absorb spelling with zero effort.) |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 11990
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, January 19, 2006 - 1:41 pm: |
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I bet it's complex. My 11th grader is much more visual than I am. I'm an excellent speller and always have been.
Maybe I'm wrong when I consider myself a non-visual person. I can't keep track of various visual details that most people do, but I do picture words in my head.
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kathy
Citizen
Username: Kathy
Post Number: 1226
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, January 19, 2006 - 5:23 pm: |
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My two kids are like mim's--one an excellent natural speller, the other not but has gradually learned to pay more attention to spelling. In elementary school she tried to "sound out" spelling, which is not a winning strategy for most of English. Sometimes she wouldn't notice that she had spelled the same word three different ways in the course of a paragraph or two. Her brother, Mr. Visual, has not misspelled a word since he was about 4.
We attended a couple of spelling bees that our son participated in years ago, and you could tell the kids who had memorized the list of words from the ones who were natural spellers; the latter sort of stared off into space while they were answering, as if they were "seeing" the words and reading them off. |
doulamomma
Citizen
Username: Doulamomma
Post Number: 824
Registered: 3-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, January 19, 2006 - 6:08 pm: |
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This is a bit off-topic, but in discussing my 3rd grader's crazy handwriting (he crowds in words & generally doesn't take enough space - seems like he's trying for speed & also likes to make his numbers look "cool", whatever that means - actually I recall printing the letter "s" & being told it looked like a "5" & being quite annoyed by this restraint on my expression, so perhaps he comes by it naturally - I got over it & I hope he will too).
Anyway, I told him that reading something that is really hard work to make out can put the reader (teacher, test grader) in a bad mood & could get in the way of his ideas being fully appreciated...he seemed to get what I was saying.
I think he, too, really ran with the "just write" (& don't worry so much about spelling/punctuation etc.). I now have a bit of an ee cummings on my hands. |
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